


In the absence of touch

by bluejbird



Series: Interconnected [6]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 18:10:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8855737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluejbird/pseuds/bluejbird
Summary: Leonard can't help but notice that Jim goes out of his way to avoid touching him. Out of habit, Jim avoids touching people who matter. It's all thanks to the Kirk family curse. Or, the one where Jim's soulmate is revealed when they touch.





	

Jim Kirk is a handsy kind of guy. He’s a shoulder slapping, back thumping, elbow grabbing, knee nudging kind of guy. He does it with people he knows well and people he doesn’t know so well, and it’s just part of what makes him Jim. 

So the fact that Jim hardly ever touches him hurts Leonard in a way that he can’t quite place.

If it was anyone else Leonard would probably retreat, cool off their friendship. He has plenty of other friends and a hell of a lot of work to keep him occupied. 

But he doesn’t back off. Because it’s Jim. And Jim is...well. Jim makes Leonard feel alive in a way he never thought he would again. At first he’d attributed his new lease of life to being at the Academy, having something that Jocelyn couldn’t take from him. But it had become pretty clear to him that it was really Jim. Jim had become the centre of his universe, and the brightness of the day rose and set with the presence or absence of Jim in his life. 

Being with Jim stirs suspiciously romantic feelings deep inside him, like a seed starting to sprout, and every time Jim flashes a grin in his direction, every time Jim seeks him out first, the seedling grows a little bit more. 

And every time Jim pulls away from a touch he wouldn’t deny anyone else, the seedling wilts. 

Leonard McCoy isn’t an idiot, and he knows he’s right on the precipice of falling in love with his best friend. And the only thing that keeps him from toppling over is the fact that Jim pulls away, or avoids contact, or only lightly pats his shoulder when with anyone else there might be a bone crushing hug to accompany it. It’s just about the only real check in the con column of the list Leonard keeps in his head titled, ‘Is there every any chance that the constant pain in my ass might love me back?’

~~~ 

Jim Kirk leads a cursed existence. It’s not because of the whole Kelvin incident, although life isn’t exactly fun with that hanging over his head – the expectations and disappointment, the whispers that he’s only at the Academy because of who he is, not what he can do. It’s not even because Jim can be an asshole when he wants to be and very capable of bringing a whole shitstorm of bad luck raining down on himself. 

No. It’s because of the Kirk family curse. 

And, okay, that’s not what rest of the family call it. But Jim can’t see it as anything else. Not when he looks at his mother – on the rare occasions when she’s planetside, which happens maybe once every three or four years – and sees the pain she’s still carrying after more than twenty years. 

The curse is knowing your soulmate. Knowing the one person who you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with. Which sounds wonderful, except that Jim’s mother doesn’t get to grow old with hers. And in Jim’s mind, that definitely falls under the umbrella of curses. 

Grandpa Tiberius explains how it all works when Jim is eight and Sam is twelve. It’s the last summer they have together before everything starts going to shit. When Jim looks back now, those happy times are tinged with sadness, and he wonders if Tiberius knew he was dying when he sat them down to tell them about meeting their grandmother, and what happened when their hands touched for the first time. How he’d known she was his soulmate, how the clarity had washed over him, just like it had for countless generations of Kirks. 

Afterwards, Jim had gone out to look at the headstone in the garden with his grandmother’s name on it, and thought about how awful it must be to lose your soulmate. 

Less than a year later, there was a new headstone beside it, etched with the name Jim also shares. Jim didn’t get the chance to see it in person, and has never been able to bring himself to go back. 

Tiberius’s story changes something in Sam, who had always been withdrawn and quiet. But the story, the promise, ignites something in him, and Jim watches as his fingers start to trail over almost every person he meets, until his soulmate shows up in his life. 

Jim keeps his hands to himself. 

It’s pretty simple. Whenever a member of the Kirk family touches their soulmate, it is revealed to both of them, as if the fog has lifted, as if their eyes are opened, as if the puzzle pieces finally fit together again. And that’s it. You know. And your lives are changed forever. 

There’s a long line of happy marriages stretching back through the Kirk family tree, and only a handful of tragedies. But those are the things Jim fixates on. He’s always been the sort of person who thinks about all possibilities, all angles of a situation. And the fact that there’s a chance for it to end badly means he isn’t exactly keen to figure it all out. 

So he avoids touch, shies away from it whenever possible. He can’t avoid it entirely, and he can’t stop people from touching him, but he makes it to sixteen before he realises one crucial flaw in his plan – it keeps him from getting close to anyone. And there are plenty of beautiful girls and guys he would very much like to get closer to. 

Jim’s plan changes, just a little. He’s fairly certain that he’ll have some inkling of who his soulmate is when he meets them. Winona had mentioned once, in a rare and surprisingly candid conversation, that she’d known George was her soulmate before they’d even touched. And Sam had said the same thing about Aurelan. So Jim knows who definitely won’t be his soulmate – the guys he grapples with when he gets drawn into fights, the girls who excite his body but not his mind. 

So he only touches people he’s fairly certain are safe. And it’s a gamble, but it works out. And if it means he surrounds himself with people who maybe aren’t the best for him, well, who really cares. 

Occasionally Jim thinks that he’s playing with fire. The relief he feels when Cupcake smashes him in the face and he doesn’t experience anything other than mind-numbing pain is almost overwhelming. And while he wouldn’t mind if Insert-First-Name-Here Uhura turns out to be his soulmate, his only experience of touching her is, while something he’ll remember for months to come, over clothing, which tells him nothing. It only works with skin to skin contact and, sadly, she doesn’t seem very keen on that. And the more bloodied his face gets, the slimmer his chances are getting. 

Of course, seeing her on board the shuttle to the Academy, and the disgusted look she gives him, fans the flames of hope a little. But then he meets McCoy. 

McCoy is...Jim doesn’t exactly know how to describe him. Neurotic and gruff is his first impression, swiftly followed by the sense of a deep hurt and then a healthy amount of generosity. 

Jim’s fingers carefully avoid brushing McCoy’s as he takes the flask, or when he hands it back, out of habit. But as they sit and talk and McCoy relaxes, their knees and shoulders knock together and it feels good. Comfortable. Right. And Jim hasn’t felt like that with anyone for a long time. Maybe even ever. 

And by the time the Shuttle lands in San Francisco, Jim’s the one left with a queasy stomach. 

They go their separate ways and Jim finds himself hoping to see McCoy again. Which he does about a month later. 

In that month, Jim settles into the academy. He makes friends – real ones, the kind who support each other and actually enjoy each other’s company – and some enemies of the jealous bullying kind. He meets hundreds of people and sleeps with about half a dozen, and only gets into three fights. 

It’s the third fight that sends him to the clinic. 

Jim hates doctors, so he goes under protest – or more accurately, simply by being rendered unconscious and transported without his knowledge. 

He wakes up with a head that feels like it’s full of sawdust, and McCoy bending over him, squinting. Jim can’t figure out why McCoy is there instead of his roommate or one of his friends. Then his eyes relearn how to focus and he reads the name badge pinned to McCoy’s lab coat.

McCoy lifts up one eyelid and then another, shining a bright light in Jim’s eyes. 

“Checking for concussion, doc?” Jim asks, batting the hands away and trying to sit up. 

McCoy’s hand slaps down on his shoulder and holds him in place. “No,” he says, attaching something that beeps and buzzes to Jim’s cheek. “I’m checking for the presence of a brain. Because only a creature without a central nervous system would be so lacking in self preservation skills.”

The weight of his hand lifts and the bed starts to tilt until Jim is sitting upright. 

“When was the last time you had a physical?” McCoy barks, and doesn’t even wait for an answer. “You have so many healed broken bones – some that, really, should be rebroken and set properly – and signs of bruising and muscle trauma that either you’re earning money on the side in some of the backroom fight matches all the young interns gamble on, or you’re getting into enough fist fights that you should really know better.”

“Where exactly are these fight nights?” Jim asks, and McCoy rolls his eyes. 

“I reset your nose while you were out,” McCoy tells him. “And that black eye will be gone in about twenty minutes. I’ll send a nurse to remove the dermal regenerator and then you can be on your way.” He turns to go. 

“Doc!” Jim calls out, although he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t want McCoy to leave, and there’s something churning in his stomach, some connection between them that tugs at him. 

McCoy stares at the hand Jim doesn’t remember reaching out, then grasps it in a brief shake. His grip is warm and firm. 

“You’re welcome,” he says, even though Jim hasn’t said thanks. 

And then he drops Jim’s hand and walks away. 

Jim’s stomach turns over, and as he starts gagging, a nurse swiftly appears and holds a bucket up just in time. 

He wonders if it’s a side effect of the booze he drank and the punches to the stomach. Or maybe the fact that it had occurred to him that McCoy had touched him multiple times and he’d felt nothing at all. 

When his stomach is empty, Jim feels the same way. 

It’s not that he’d wanted McCoy to be his soulmate. He doesn’t even know the man. But there’s definitely a connection there, and Jim thinks that maybe if soulmates exist, then so do other people who’re supposed to be in your life for some reason. It doesn’t erase the quiet burn of disappointment in his stomach, but he tries not to think about it too much. 

Instead, Jim decides he and McCoy are going to be friends, and doesn’t even give him a choice in the matter. The next time he sees McCoy, sitting by himself in the cafeteria, he takes his tray and sits opposite him, and ignores the surprise on McCoy’s face. 

They eat in silence until McCoy abruptly stands up and busses his tray. So Jim joins him the next day and the next. And when he hacks into the computer to find McCoy’s class and clinic schedules, and his room number, he justifies it as destiny. Maybe, he thinks, McCoy is supposed to be the CMO on the starship that Jim plans on captaining one day. And maybe fate is slowly weaving their threads together. 

He doesn’t tell McCoy this as their friendship starts to blossom. He’s not sure McCoy would believe that sort of thing, and really the only reason Jim thinks it could be real himself is because of the whole soulmate curse. So they talk about pretty much everything else, and McCoy becomes Bones, and Kirk becomes kid, or, in circumstances demanding exasperated tones, Jim. 

But Jim doesn’t touch him. He doesn’t quite know why. He knows Bones isn’t his soulmate – Bones has patched him up enough times by now to make that very clear. Jim is pretty sure that his soulmate would be very definitely revealed by a touch tipping his chin upwards, by a thumb rubbing against his jaw. But all that happens when Bones fixes him up is that Jim files those thoughts away for later pondering, and occasionally dusts them off when his roommate is out of the room, or when he’s got enough water rations to allow him a nice long shower. 

It would be easier to stop worrying about it, to let himself relax. But old habits are hard to break, and Jim doesn’t touch people who could matter, so he keeps his hands to himself, and when his fingers twitch to touch and he reels the feeling in, it’s a constant reminder that Bones is not his, is not meant for him. 

First year ends with a flurry of finals panic, and Jim ends up spending most of his time in the library, studying and listening to Bones mutter to himself. Bones has a certain quality about him that scares people off at the best of times (Jim once delicately describes it as ‘somewhat grouchy’ and Bones rolls his eyes and looks at Jim like he’s a moron and says, “No, I’m just an asshole who hates everyone.”) but he dials it up way past eleven when he’s stressed. 

And Jim doesn’t mind it. Bones rarely turns his ire on Jim, and when he does it’s almost amusing to watch him rant and rave. Jim finds himself listening quite fondly sometimes, which of course only irritates Bones more, making him demand whether Jim finds it funny (yes), or if he’s taking things seriously (he’s not). 

When the end of the year finally comes, Jim works up the courage to ask Bones to room with him next year. He doesn’t know why it’s so difficult, other than the fact that maybe he’s used to rejection. 

But Bones just shrugs and says sure, and asks if Jim is going home for the summer. 

And since there is no home – or maybe now it’s just here, at the Academy – he says no. So Bones smiles and suggests they move into their new place immediately. 

Jim doesn’t ask why Bones isn’t going home, because he’s pretty sure it’ll just make both of them angry. 

Jim takes summer school classes and Bones works double shifts at the clinic, and since campus is mostly empty, they spend their evenings in their new room, watching old holovids and arguing about the stupidest things. 

It’s during one of those arguments that Jim feels stupidly brave and moves into Bones’s space. 

Bones pretty much stops breathing. 

“What are you doing?” 

Jim licks his lips nervously. He doesn’t really know. He’s never done something quite like this before. The kissing and hopefully the sex that will follow are old hat to him. But this is different. He feels something for Bones. Something strong and aching inside of him which he thinks might be love. 

And it makes no sense. Because one day Jim is going to meet his soulmate and love them and they will love him back, and if he does this now, if he lets himself love Bones and lets Bones love him, then they’ll both get hurt, both get destroyed when that happens. 

But somehow Jim doesn’t care. He wants this, and has been thinking about it for weeks. It’s gotten to the point where it’s all he can think about when Bones talks to him, all of his focus on Bones’s lips moving, sounding out words, while his brain wonders what they feel like, what they taste like, what they’ll look like wrapped around Jim’s cock. 

“Something I really want to do,” Jim says. 

He leans across Bones, resting one hand on his shoulder, their thighs pressing together. 

Jim reaches out his other hand, hovering it over Bones’s neck. Even without touching, he can feel the warmth of Bones’s body, and it’s tantalising, sending shivers down Jim’s spine. He wants to smooth his fingers across Bones’s cheek, to feel the stubble rasp against the pads of his hand, to slide his palm lower until it glides over the rise of his collarbone. 

And he wants for that touch to be accompanied with the realisation, the clarity, he’s heard so much about.

The fact that it won’t be makes him hesitate. 

Bones’s hands move to his waist, and Jim sucks in a breath. The idea of Bones taking charge, manhandling him into position – perhaps straddling his lap, which Jim enjoys the idea of because of all of the hip grinding possibilities it brings – does something to him and he can’t help but moan a little. It’s a desperate sound, and something flashes in Bones’s eyes that looks like want and desire and need. 

And Jim drops his hand to Bones’s other shoulder to hold him in place and moves in to kiss him. 

But Bones shoves him away, slides off the couch and stands looking down at Jim, his hands clenched into fists.

“We can’t do this,” Bones says, and Jim gazes up at him, knowing he’s right, but stubbornly refusing to admit it. 

“Of course we can,” he says. “I want to. You want to.”

Bones stares back at him, doesn’t deny it, and Jim’s heart begins to race. 

“Come on, Bones,” Jim cajoles. “You know it’d be good. It’d be fun.”

Bones’s face hardens. “I don’t want fun,” he snaps. His arms fold across his chest, defensive. “I don’t want to be one of your one night stands.”

Jim feels like he’s been slapped. “Is that what you think of me?” he asks quietly. 

Bones sighs. “No, it’s just...I know you, Jim. I know that you’re bored and looking for something to do. Someone to do. And I don’t want to be that someone. Not like that.”

“It wouldn’t be a one night stand,” Jim insists. “I promise it wouldn’t.”

Bones looks sad. “Can you promise me that it wouldn’t end the moment someone better came along?”

Jim hears years of hurt in Bones’s voice. He knows what’s causing it, knows all about Jocelyn and her cheating, and the fact that the guy Bones had caught her with is now living in his house, raising his daughter. He hates Jocelyn for hurting Bones, and he hates her for leaving enough of a mark that Bones thinks Jim would do the same thing. 

He starts to say he promises, that of course he’d never do that. But then he thinks of the Kirk curse, thinks about how he doesn’t know what he’d do if he stumbled across his soulmate. 

It had been that way for Sam. He’d been dating a pretty young thing, had seemed happy finally after years of sliding his fingers across the hands of everyone he’d met, hoping to uncover his soulmate. Jim suspects that he’d maybe even stopped trying, stopped believing in the curse. And then he’d bumped into Aurelan – literally – and their hands had brushed and that had been that. The previous relationship had ended so abruptly that Jim can’t even remember her name, and he wonders if Sam remembers it either. 

He doesn’t want to do that to Bones. Can’t. So he definitely can’t lie to him. 

Bones nods slowly when Jim stays silent. “I get it,” he says. “I know that maybe it wouldn’t be just one night. But I don’t want to be your summer fling, either. I’d rather have nothing than just that. So let’s pretend this never happened. Let’s just go back to being friends.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Jim says, and it’s the truth. He’s almost positive he’s in love with Bones, and he doesn’t know how he can sleep in the same room as someone he loves and not reach out to them. Doesn’t know how they can sit together to study and eat and talk, and not acknowledge that there’s something between them that should exist in reality, not just in their heads. 

“If you feel about me the way I think you do, the way I feel about you, then you’ll find the strength, somehow,” Bones says. 

And Jim wonders if the crushing sensation in his chest is his heart breaking. 

Bones leaves without an excuse, and Jim sits on the couch and tries to remember how to breathe, and tries even harder not to feel like yet another person he loves has just walked out on him. 

It helps that a few hours later Bones walks back in and acts like nothing happened, to the point where Jim starts to question his own sanity. 

But he plays along and pretty soon things are as back to normal as they’re ever going to be. And if Jim turns up the hot water as high as it will go when he’s jacking off in the shower, trying to replicate the aura of heat he’d felt on Bones’s skin, well that was no one’s business but his own. 

Second year goes much like first year, except that Jim can’t forget the twist of Bones’s lips when he’d said the words ‘one night stand’, so he reigns things in a little. Or, actually, a lot. 

Once semester starts again, he goes more than a month without getting laid, and he channels his energy into other things for so long that he almost forgets about what it was like to go out, drink, and either get in a fight or find someone to spend the night with. 

So when Bones plonks a PADD down in front of him, Jim squints at it without understanding. 

“My clinic schedule,” Bones explains. He jabs a finger at the screen. “Note how on Wednesdays and Fridays I work the overnight shift. So I won’t be here.”

Jim gives him a sympathetic look. “That sucks, Bones. Sorry they’re making you work so hard.”

Bones stares at him like he’s an idiot. “I mean, you’ll be alone in the room. To do whatever you want.”

Jim stares back before realisation hits, and as soon as it does, he begins to question his own intelligence. “Oh! That’s...great Bones. Thanks. But I think I’ll–”

“If it’s because of what I said,” Bones says, his voice clipped, embarrassed, apologetic, “I didn’t mean you should stop. There’s nothing wrong with what you do – assuming you stay safe, of course – so I shouldn’t have shamed you.”

Jim wants to protest, but he takes the PADD and looks at it, memorising the schedule. When he hands it back he gives Bones a smile, accepts the offering as the white flag it’s intended as. 

“Thanks,’ he says, and means it. 

He doesn’t make use of the knowledge straight away, but a few weeks later he goes out, and meets a cute Andorian, and when Bones comes home the next morning and sees the grin on Jim’s face, he smiles back. 

And that’s when Jim knows they’ll be okay. That no matter what happens with this whole soulmate curse he’s carrying, no matter what future it brings, he’ll always have his best friend by his side. 

And yes, they have some awkward moments. There’s still something there between them, that connection, that tug Jim had felt from their first meeting and still feels almost constantly, stronger when they’re in close proximity, but still there as a reminder when they’re apart. He’s pretty sure that Bones is in love with him, judging by the fond looks Bones throws his way when he thinks Jim isn’t looking, with the patience he shows to Jim but no-one else. 

It means that Jim does his darndest not to torment Bones. Or himself. So after a lifetime of avoiding touch, it still comes easy to fight the desire to do it now. And that’s important. Because although Bones had told him to find strength to resist, he’s sure that if he touches him once, he won’t be able to stop. 

When Bones patches him up – less and less frequently now, with the dialing back of his evenings out, and the increased workload that second year brings – it takes all of Jim’s resolve not to lean into the light touch, not to reach out to grasp Bones’s wrist and hold him in place. 

So Jim avoids situations where they’d have to touch, skin to skin. Anywhere that is clothed is fair game, although Jim minimises that too. But bare skin is hands off. It’s a rule he makes himself live by. 

In the summer between second and third year, Jim convinces Bones to get his pilot’s license. Bones passes the theory part with ease and starts taking lessons, but after the third time he and his instructor stumble out of the shuttle arguing, Bones threatens to quit. 

“Too late,” Jim says, pointing at the figure vomiting into a nearby trash can. “Your instructor already did.”

It makes perfect sense for Jim to take over. He knows when Bones is shouting because he’s scared, or when he’s frustrated, knows that when he lashes out it’s not personal. He knows what to say to get Bones to figure out what he did wrong and correct it. 

They barely ever argue. But then one day Bones seems particularly flustered, bungling Jim’s instructions of which buttons to press, exactly how far to steer. 

Jim reaches out to move Bones’s hand into the correct position. His fingers are about to wrap around Bones’s when he catches himself and draws back. It isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and unless Jim gets better at remembering it won’t be the last. Luckily, he doesn’t think Bones has noticed before. 

Bones notices this time. 

His back straightens and his face becomes carefully blank, and he steers the shuttle back to the landing pad. 

“I think I’m done for today,” Bones says, and gets up to leave without saying anything else. 

Jim watches him go, and wonders why it hurts so much.

Bones makes excuses to cancel their next two planned lessons, and when Jim mentions something about the third, Bones drops a PADD in his lap that proclaims that Dr Leonard H. McCoy is now in the possession of a pilot’s license. 

“I didn’t even know you sat the test,” Jim says, accusingly. 

“Surprise,” Bone says, trying to sound upbeat but falling flat. 

They don’t talk about it. And Jim makes a concerted effort to remember not to touch him. He doesn’t forget again. 

And without those little mistakes, Bones seems to relax, and they fall into their old routine of pretending they’re not in love with each other. 

And it works. Third year begins, and it’s a killer. Jim stays up late studying, and gets up early to run, to clear the fuzziness in his head when advanced diplomacy mixes with transwarp theory and stellar cartography to produce a jumble of incorrect facts. 

Bones stays up late with him, rolling out of bed each morning to cover shifts at the clinic or to spend time in the labs working on one of the many projects he’s thrown himself into. 

They both wish there were more hours in the day.

Several months in, out of nowhere, a Sunday looms where they have absolutely nothing to do. No tests to study for. No reports to write. No projects to complete. No clinic shifts to work. 

Jim is a bundle of excitement when he realises it, checking and double checking the calendar where he keeps track of both their schedules. 

“What should we do?” he demands of Bones, who is focused on an anatomical diagram that looks vaguely Vulcan. 

“Sleep,” Bones says immediately. Jim calls him an old man, and Bones snaps back that Jim will grow old too one day, assuming he doesn’t do anything stupid like get himself killed in some ridiculous self-sacrificing mission, and then he’ll look back and wish he’d spent more time sleeping. 

Jim ignores him and plans a fun day for them both, with enough activities that neither of them will be bored. He gives Bones an itinerary he’s made, and sets his alarm. 

His body has other plans though. When Jim wakes up, feeling like he’s been teleported somewhere and put back together wrong, he has a vague recollection of shouting at his alarm to shut up. 

And when his eyes finally open and he sees the time, his heart sinks. 

The morning is completely gone, and with it at least three of the things he was most looking forward to doing. 

“Told you so,” Bones calls from their little kitchenette area where, from the delicious smells drifting Jim’s way, he’s making breakfast and coffee. 

“I hate you,” Jim says, yawning and stretching out his muscles. He pulls himself up to sit and glare at his best friend, who is whistling with the smug satisfaction of being right. 

Bones puts down whatever he’s doing and brings Jim a PADD set up with news headlines. 

“We’ll go out and be social human beings this afternoon,” he promises, seeing Jim’s disappointment. “But for now, appreciate the rest, read some news, and when it’s done, eat your breakfast. Doctor’s orders.”

Jim scowls a little but takes the PADD and soon finds himself engrossed in reading about the latest skirmishes along the border of the neutral zone. It makes him long for graduation, to be out there among the stars, doing some good in the universe. He’s looking forward to it, even though Bones steadfastly insists that he won’t be taking his feet off of terra firma, and is already busy buttering up the head of Starfleet Medical for an on-Earth position. 

Jim tries not to think about what it will be like to fly off without Bones beside him, and what that will mean for the feelings they’re both keeping under wraps. And he tries not to think about whether he’ll meet his soulmate out there somewhere among the stars, since he hasn’t stumbled across them here on Earth. 

He flicks to a story about some new research out of the Daystrom institute. 

“Here,” Bones says, shoving a cup of coffee in Jim’s direction. 

Jim reaches up to take it without looking, and suddenly it feels like he’s repeating his high-G training from first year, ramped up a thousand times. 

He sucks in a gasp, feeling the cup fall from his fingers. He hears it shatter on the ground, feels the splashes of hot coffee burn his skin, hears Bones shout something. 

And then his mind is suddenly empty. It’s as if nothing exists. Nothing except for Bones. 

Jim stares at him, and sees his future, and his past and his present. He feels a ripple of ‘yes’ pass through him, a bright burst of rightness in the universe. He doesn’t know why he questioned what he felt for Bones before, but he knows now that it is love. It’s love greater than anything else he’ll ever experience. 

“What the fuck was that?” Bones demands. He’s staring at Jim looking terrified, and the world around them fades back into being and Jim blinks. 

“It was–”

Bones’s knees seem to give out and he sits down hard on the foot of Jim’s bed. 

“I may throw up on you,” Bones mumbles, and Jim wonders if Bones had felt it exactly the same, and just as strong.

“No you won’t,” he says, and then, because there’s no other way to explain it, he tells Bones about the curse. 

Bones stares at him like he’s lost his mind. 

“Bullshit,” he says. “That doesn’t make one lick of sense.”

Jim shrugs. “Then you explain what it was.”

“A…” Bones makes a face. “A spontaneous shared psychotic break. A ripple in the temporal field. A shared dream that we’re both going to wake up from, caused by toxic mould in whatever we ate for dinner last night. A–”

Jim interrupts. “And any of those are more likely than what I just said?”

Bones’s mouth clamps shut. “It’s just...if you knew it was a thing, if you knew that it was a possibility, then why now? Why didn’t you ever touch me before? Dammit Jim, we’ve been dancing around each other for years now and–” he stops talking and something dark crosses his face, “and I guess it’s because you didn’t want us to be soulmates,” he finishes, refusing to meet Jim’s eyes. 

Jim jumps out of bed, narrowly avoiding the shattered pieces of his favourite coffee cup. 

“You think I didn’t want this? This is exactly what I wanted! So I didn’t touch you because I knew it couldn’t happen because…” Jim stops, frowning. “Because we’ve touched so many times and it hasn’t happened before. That’s not how it works. It’s supposed to happen the first time we touch. Not spontaneously for no reason.”

“But this is the first time we’ve touched like this,” Bones says. 

Jim shakes his head. “It’s not. It’s all about skin to skin contact and we’ve done that dozens of times. Every time you’ve had to fix up my bruised knuckles or my split lip.”

Bones gives Jim a look like he can’t understand how he manages to walk and talk at the same time, let alone be allowed into Starfleet. 

“Good god, Jim,” Bones says. “Just because you’re reckless with your safety, do you think everyone else is, too? I don’t know where my patients have been! They could have a myriad of painful and horrific communicable diseases. I’m not going to touch a patient with bare hands. Not even you.”

Jim stares at Bones, trying to process what he’s saying. 

“Do you mean to tell me,” he grinds out through clenched teeth. “That all this time, every time your hands have been on my face or my ribs or my hands, and I’ve been itching to touch you and resisting, you’ve been wearing–”

“Nanogloves,” Bones fills in. “So thin they’re barely perceptible. They’re perfect for surgery because they leave me with a lot more dexterity and sensitivity than the medical force fields some of my colleagues use.”

Jim’s hands bunch into fists. “So this whole time,” he says, and he knows he sounds angry, although he doesn’t know who he’s most angry at, himself or Bones, or the stupid Kirk family curse and the entire ridiculous situation, “this whole time all it would have taken was for me to reach out and touch you, and we’d have known? We didn’t have to waste all this time?”

“Don’t ask me,” Bones says, holding his hands out defensively. “It’s your fucking curse.”

Jim growls in frustration and practically leaps at him, backing him against the wall. His hands grab at Bones, one grasping the back of his neck, the other landing on his waist and then sliding up to ruck up the shirt and touch the smooth skin there. 

Bones kisses Jim before he can move any further, and Jim slides his fingers into the hair at the nape of Bones’s neck, grasping, refusing to let go. Bones’s hands cup Jim’s face, holding him, controlling him, and Jim puts his anger into the kiss, but also the desperate love and need that he’s been feeling since the moment they first met. 

“Oh,” Bones says against Jim’s mouth. “Yeah, we should have been doing this from minute one, right there on that damn tin can of a shuttle.”

“Please,” Jim says, his voice sounding raw. “Please Bones, let me touch you. I need to – I want to–”

Bones answers by pushing Jim away, and Jim sucks in a painful breath, not sure what’s happening, not daring to let his heart start beating again yet. 

But Bones just yanks his shirt over his head and reaches for Jim’s to do the same. And they kick off the rest of their clothing and fumble their way onto Bones’s slightly less coffee splattered bed as best they can without taking their hands off each other. 

~~~ 

If Leonard thought Jim Kirk was a handsy guy before, it’s nothing to how Jim is in bed. Jim’s hands are eager for exploration, just as curious as he knows Jim is about what’s out there in the galaxy, waiting to be discovered. 

Jim catalogues Leonard’s body, and as he presses kisses along Leonard’s spinous processes, moving down lower and lower with each kiss, it puts great big check marks in the ‘pro’ side of the stupid ‘Is there every any chance that the constant pain in my ass might love me back?’ list he’s kept in his head all these years. Now there are so many pros they completely outweigh everything else Leonard had put on the list, so he mentally erases the negatives and then, for good measure, crumples it up and tosses it away, just as Jim runs out of vertebrae to kiss and moves lower, doing something that makes Leonard gasp and groan and push back against him. 

The whole soulmate thing is still a muddle of confusion in Leonard’s head, and he wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t experienced it himself. He’s never felt such clarity, such certainty, before that moment when their fingers had brushed. Such a light touch, so casual, and yet such an enormous reaction. He’d seen nothing but Jim in that moment. Jim, who really was the centre of his universe, just like he’d suspected, and who looked at him like Leonard was the centre of his. 

It was terrifying, in the most wonderful way, to have someone look at him like that. And to be allowed to look back just the same. 

In that moment, the tiny seedling inside him, the one that had threatened to bloom so many times, and then retreated, the one he’s been keeping in heartbreaking suspended animation ever since he’d felt Jim start to withdraw all those months ago, finally blossoms. And it’s like suddenly there’s a garden inside of Leonard, an entire rainforest, a complete terraforming of every broken part of him, even the parts that had been burnt and salted so nothing would ever grow again. 

Jim’s fingers slide around and inside him, touching everything within reach. Leonard aches for more, cries out for it, and Jim does something with those clever fingers that have him seeing stars. 

It’s an amazing feeling and one he’ll have to get used to, if he’s going to apply for all of the same ships as Jim. It’s something he’s been thinking about for months now, and he’s been waiting for the right time to tell Jim. 

Leonard twists, reaching for Jim, demanding his turn at touching and exploring, and thinks about how he’ll tell him later, when they’ve touched and tasted and held on enough to make up for everything they’d missed out on.


End file.
